Come Retire With Me!

I’m in my 50’s now, rolling toward my Golden Years. At my age, we think about retirement. We read about it, too. Mostly, we think and read about how we can’t retire because we don’t have enough money. To that, I say “Balderdash!” (I say that because I like the word “balderdash” but rarely get the chance to use it). I read somewhere that 20-30% of Americans think winning a lottery is their best chance to pay for retirement. I don’t recommend that plan. If that many American win the lottery, the pay outs will be so low, you won’t get hardly anything.

If you have a generous pension plan or trust fund or guaranteed inheritance, you may want to stop reading at this point. Little of this will apply to you. You have a safety net in place to assure your comfortable retirement. For the rest of us, it takes some planning.

We can, in fact, retire if we know what to do. First, we must understand what retirement is not.

Retirement is not unemployment. Unemployment is the drunk brother-in-law of retirement. The only thing it has in common with retirement is the lack of gainful employment. It’s very easy to be unemployed. AARP doesn’t publish articles on how best to become unemployed. We all know many tried and true methods: incompetence, sloth, thievery, amateur pornography, insubordination, felonious behavior, economic downturns, job outsourcing, bad luck and many, many others.

Retirement is not disability. You might be disabled and thus unable to work. That sucks, unless you are really a malingerer in which case you’re okay with it. Regardless, you’re not retired. You just can’t work. There’s no retiring from disability, unless death counts.

Retirement is not wealth. Perhaps you are incredibly wealthy and haven’t really ever worked. Whether you attained this status through dumb luck or the largesse of your ancestors, you aren’t retired. You are a ne’er-do-well or man about town or socialite or some other such fortunate soul. You can’t retire from those “jobs.”

So what exactly is retirement? Retirement is where one works his or her ass off for years until the point that he or she can no longer stand it and quits. Unlike unemployment, the retiree has sufficient income or assets upon which to live some modicum of a decent existence. Pensions, savings, Social Security, inheritance and the like all qualify.

Now that we know what we’re dealing with, what can we do to be prepared? If you’re my age or older and you haven’t thought about that yet, here’s the plan: Work until you die. You’ve waited way too long. Maybe you’ll get lucky and get disabled at some point. For everyone else, there are few things you can do–or not do, as the case may be.

1. Work. This one is simple enough. You can’t retire from doing nothing. Get a job. Pay your taxes. Set up an IRA. Contribute to a 401K if you can. Every little bit helps. Better yet, get one of those jobs that pays scads of money, like movie star or hedge fund manager.

2. Live Within Your Means. We’ve all heard this but spend much of our time either totally ignoring it or looking for loopholes. Anyone can understand that you shouldn’t spend money you don’t have or incur bills you can’t pay. That’s pretty basic stuff. If you don’t understand that, there’s really no hope for you. Even if you do understand, you aren’t out of the woods. Read on.

3. Spend Your Own Money. Do you still have your parents around? If so, good for you. If they are good people, call and visit them often. Be helpful to them. Pay them back for the many years they cared for you. Don’t mooch off them. Maybe your parents are generous sorts and willingly give you money and things. Here’s the deal: If the only reason you go on vacation or have a car or a house is because your parents still provide for you, you don’t live within your means. You live within their means.

Of course, many young people depend upon family to help them get started in life. That’s fine. If you’re 40 years old, you’re not a young person. If you haven’t gotten your start yet, it ain’t happening. Learn to support yourself.

You may be counting on your parents to actually fund your retirement. That plan may well work. Unfortunately, unless you mooch off them, it requires their deaths. That’s a high price to pay to retire. But, if that kind of thing doesn’t bother you, just look forward to the reading of the will.

It is equally wrong to plan to sponge off your children. This is particularly true if you have already bled your parents dry. Your children will be counting on you to support them forever, too. A cataclysmic clash of cultures awaits sure to tear your family asunder for generations to come or, at the very least, leave you all pondering which unfortunate relatives upon which you can descend.

Another sure sign of not living within your means is borrowing money. I’m not talking about loans for houses, cars or business reasons. These are, to a great extent, unavoidable in today’s world. Have you ever borrowed money to go on vacation? Here’s a thought–STAY HOME. How about a “pay day” loan where you can cash your paycheck before you get it? Here’s word for you to learn: USURY.

It is axiomatic that drug and gambling debts are red flags. In fact, all debts are red flags. If you can’t afford your lifestyle while you’re working, what are the chances you can afford it when you don’t work?

4. Require Others to Live Within Their Means. Nothing good can be said about loaning money to people for personal reasons. Perhaps you are a business person and you do so as an investment. Assuming you’ve done your due diligence, that’s a business decision. Loaning money to people who just need money is like paying someone for doing nothing for you. Naturally, it can be difficult to refuse a close friend or family member during hard times. Here are a few responses which can gently dissuade such requests:

“BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”
“What do I look like–a bank?”
“What do I look like–an idiot?”
“I’m just going to pretend that you never said anything.”

5. Save First, Spend Second. This is a basic concept. Save money, then spend–not vice versa. Why? Because we Americans tend to spend all our money. We like to own things–or at the very least make payments on things. Famed motorcycle daredevil and spendthrift Evel Knievel once said:

The country singer Garth Brooks once said that he’s made more money than he could ever spend. Write me a check Garth – I’ll show you how to spend it in 24 hours.

That’s the American way. It’s also the way to guarantee that you die at work. Don’t die at work.

It’s Retirement, Stupid. With these few guidelines, we can all retire if we have reasonable expectations. You shouldn’t need as much money when you’re retired as you did when you worked. This is especially true if you have children–that is, assuming they heed the no-mooching rule and get the hell out of your house at some point.

Do you plan to travel the world when you retire? Good for you, but that takes money–a lot of money. You can retire without living the lifestyle of a Kardashian. Excuse my language, but if you can’t afford shit like that NOW, you probably can’t when you retire. That’s okay, you can still retire.

Here’s what you do. Work and save money and you should be okay. Then again, maybe not. There’s always the lottery.

©www.thetrivialtroll.com 2014

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5 Ridiculous Things: A Random List

The older I get, the more I hear the same stuff over and over and over. I guess that’s true of everyone. What may not be true of everyone is that I don’t repeat this tripe, except to the extent that I make up my own stuff and spread it.

This is largely a phenomenon of the Internet meme. A meme is an idea or thought which spreads from person to person. It’s kind of like “word of mouth.” The Internet has taken this to new level by giving us each access to many more people than would otherwise be available to hear our raving. For example, this silly blog has been read by thousands of people in dozens of countries. Why? Because it’s on the Internet.

The Internet, via social media in particular, allows us to spread rumors and half-truths at the speed of light or at least very fast. There is so much of this that we have websites such as snopes.com devoted to debunking these myths. It’s only natural that Snopes must even debunk rumors about Snopes.

I’m now prepared to debunk a handful or particularly irksome thoughts, ideas, etc. Why? Because I’m on the Internet, by God.

As always, I offer my view only. It may be incorrect. You may disagree. If you do, I respect your right to disagree. You have the right to be wrong. I won’t infringe on that.

Below are a few things I’ve heard too much about which simply aren’t true. Believe them if you wish, but I don’t. For our purposes here, that’s all that matters.

Here are just five that I don’t buy into. Sorry, but that’s how it is. They were chosen at random for no particular reason.

1. PRISON IS GREAT

Ever heard something like this: Why don’t we treat the elderly like we do prisoners–free room and board; watch TV all day; exercise; and free medical/dental? This outrage is based upon the notion that prison is great. It’s great treatment and a wonderful life. Prison, the thought goes, is too soft.

If you believe this, it’s safe to assume that you’ve never been in prison or talked to anyone who has been. I’ve known a bunch of people who’ve been in prison. They are universal on one opinion: IT SUCKS! I know a guy who spent three years in a minimum security prison on an Air Force base, one of the so-called “country club” prisons. He said it was like “waking up in a nightmare every day.”

Here are few things that folks have told me about prison:

It’s filthy. No matter what you do, that doesn’t change.
You might be allowed to shower once or twice a week.
You use the bathroom out in the open. That includes “major transactions,” too.
You are surrounded by violent, dangerous and often mentally ill people. You live with them, eat with them and spend all the rest of your time with them.
Prisoners aren’t known for their fabulous teeth. No citation of authority is necessary.
The free health care consists of seeing a doctor if you are clearly deathly ill (or dead) or if you have been grievously injured by one of your fellow prisoners.
The great exercise program consists of hanging out with the same dangerous people, except now they have access to a variety of implements which can be used to kill you.
It smells. Bad. That’s a common theme from everyone I’ve heard. It just smells bad.
The food is generally horrific. If you really step out of line, some prisons serve you something called Nutriloaf.

Nutriloaf–One of the many joys of prison life

Here’s the bottom line: Prison is horrible. It’s a nightmare. I’ve never met any ex-con who speaks fondly of his days in stir nor I have met anyone who wanted to go back. If it’s such a great life, I suggest you go. The good thing about prison is that it’s really easy to join.

Maybe you know an old person in a nursing home worse than prison. If so, it’s hard to imagine, unless you put them there because you hate them (see my comments below about old people). In that case, it’s good enough for them.

By the way, you know what would really suck? Being old AND in prison.

2. POOR PEOPLE WANT TO BE POOR

Here’s one you’re bound to have heard: Don’t buy beer or cigarettes or get tattoos or cars or TVs if you’re on welfare. It’s similar to Michelle Bachmann’s suggestion that the best way to get health insurance is to get a job. Literally, these statements may be true. Literally, but not practically.

Perhaps it would be better for poor people not to drink beer or smoke. That’s probably true for the rich, too, Tattoos seem to be a generally bad idea to me. Why not take it a step further and just say that poor people shouldn’t buy magazines or soda or toys for their kids or clothes, for that matter?

I have never been poor. I wasn’t born poor. I wasn’t raised poor. I didn’t pull myself up by the bootstraps. I don’t even know what bootstraps are. I’m not a self-made man. Yes, I am successful, at least by most definitions. But, I had a lot of advantages–college-educated parents and a comfortable upbringing for two BIG examples. So, I don’t know what it’s like to be poor. Most of the people who bitch and moan about poor people also don’t know what it’s like to be poor.

I grew up with poor people. Some of my friends were poor. They had one thing in common–they didn’t like it, and were at least slightly embarrassed by it. In Eastern Kentucky, poverty wasn’t uncommon. We were in a melting pot. The rich, poor and middle class were all together. We went to school and church together. You could be like my family and live well but have neighbors who were poor by any definition. We got to see it up close, and it’s ugly.

Ever wonder why a lot of poor people turn to drug-dealing? Was it a life-long ambition? Is it because they want to accomplish something in life? Nope. It’s for the money. Being poor isn’t good, and most poor people agree. Yes, there are exceptions, just as there are to every rule. I’ve known people born into poverty who didn’t aspire to anything better. What I have NEVER known is someone who wasn’t poor but aspired to be poor, because it is such a great life.

3. PARENTS ARE GREAT

It seems that I’m always hearing about how great everyone’s parents are (were). Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparents Day, etc. On Facebook, there are innumerable posts requesting you to “like” them if your parents were saints or your best friends or fabulous. Let’s be honest, some parents are awful.

Now, I had excellent parents. They worked hard, cared about their kids and sacrificed a great deal for us. I was LUCKY. That’s it. I didn’t choose them anymore than they chose me. Someone recently told me that I’m wrong about that–that I was blessed to have good parents. Perhaps. But that begs the question: If I did nothing to be so blessed, what did others do to be cursed with their parents? Nothing, you say? Then, that sounds like luck–good and bad–to me.

I’ve known people whose parents beat them, ignored them or were just generally crappy to them their whole lives. These are just horrible people who happened to achieve the none-too-impressive feat of procreation. You know what these folks deserve for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day? NOTHING. As I’ve quoted before, my father once said: “When I was young, we had plenty of elder abuse, except we called it ‘revenge.'”

So, if you had good parents, good for you, just don’t blow too much about it. You didn’t have anything to do with it. If you had rotten parents, it’s okay, too. You didn’t make them that way.

4. RICH PEOPLE ARE BAD

I’ve written before about hating rich people, so I won’t belabor that. At the heart of that hate is the belief that the rich are bad. They aren’t, at least no more so than the rest of us.

Warren Buffett is rich. Super-rich. Billionaire-rich. He once said: “Of the billionaires I’ve known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.” That makes sense. Buffett doesn’t seem like to jerk to me. Maybe he is, but it probably doesn’t have anything to do with having a silo full of money.

Let’s all accept one irrefutable fact: We all want to be rich. All of us. If the rich are awful, then we all aspire to be awful.

5. OLD PEOPLE ARE WONDERFUL

It is a common refrain old people are a “treasure” or a “joy” or sources of “wisdom.” If you were a miserable ass when you were young, there’s a pretty good chance that’s what you’ll be when you’re old. Being a fool is likely to get worse with age, not better. In fact, the older you are, the more people probably realize your true colors. You just lived a long time. Big whoop. Charles Manson is 78. Mozart died at 35.

Charles Manson, a wise and wonderful old fellow

Think about this: Have you ever known an old person you couldn’t stand to be around? Of course, you have. He or she was probably a family member, too. Some old people become mean with age. Some were mean to start with and became old and mean. Not all old people are cute or charming or wise. Some are ugly, hateful and dumb asses. It’s hard to outgrow those things.

Well, that’s five things that I have now stripped of their veneer of credibility. Perhaps, you are an old, rich prisoner who aspires to a life of poverty. As such, you might disagree with me. Well, you’re wrong. So much for your “wisdom,” Pops.

©thetrivialtroll.wordpress.com 2012

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Eat The Rich

It’s time to be honest. We don’t like rich people, do we? Come on, you know don’t. Think about it. Don’t feel bad. It’s common. Why would Aerosmith, Krokus AND Motörhead all have songs called Eat The Rich, even though they’re all rich (okay, Krokus probably isn’t)? In fact, it’s the American Way.

Some people paint buildings with anti-rich graffitti

Who is rich? It depends. My Dad once asked–rhetorically–“Does a million dollars sound like a lot of money?” His brother responded: “It depends on what crowd you’re hanging out in.” True enough.

Some people might say I’m rich. I make a good living, pay all my bills on time and even save money. That’s rich to some folks, but not to me. To me, rich is not having to work. If you don’t have to work, you’re rich.

This angry fellow doesn’t care for the rich. Imagine the popularity of an “Eat the Poor” sign.

My definition doesn’t work all that well, though. Disabled people don’t have to work. They’d like to work, I guess, but they can’t. I suppose some poor people actually don’t have to work, either. They get by somehow. Retired people don’t have to work, but most of them don’t seem rich to me. I guess what I mean is that if I could live like I do now AND not work, I’d be rich.

Here’s my test to see if someone is rich. Go to the putative rich person’s house and use the bathroom. Rich people have rich bathrooms. Naturally, there is no stink. They have bidets. They have lotions and fancy soap. You’ll be afraid to touch the soap. The towels will be fabulous. You can just touch them, and they will absorb all the moisture from your hide. I know I’m not rich, because our towels come from Walmart. It’s like drying yourself with a raincoat. Don’t even get me started on the toilet paper of the rich. It’s like using a cashmere.

Typical rich man bathroom.

Most any American is rich compared to an impoverished person in a Third World country. Some people, however, are so stinking rich that no context is required. Bill Gates, for example. He’s worth tens of billions of dollars. Billions. That’s rich anywhere, anytime.

We don’t like that kind of rich. That’s just too damn rich. It doesn’t matter if he gives millions to charity. He damn well should. Rich bastard.

What bothers us–or at least me–is this question: Why couldn’t I think of something like a PC? You don’t even need something that complicated. Mike Nesmith of the band The Monkees is rich. Why? His mother invented Liquid Paper. I could have done that. Someone invented Velcro. Post-it Notes. Staples. Clothes pins. All these simple things, and I’m too freakin’ stupid to think of any of them. Dammit.

I’ll post this on Facebook. Mega-billionaire Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook. Why didn’t I do that? Now, that punk has more money than he can ever spend.

Sometimes, we admire the rich. They are the American Dream, coming from humble beginnings. Usually, though, we’re just jealous. At least, I am.

You know what really chafes us? People who inherit piles of money. They didn’t do anything but win some kind of genetic PowerBall. That just sucks. It condemns all our prior generations as a pack of losers.

I have an ancestor who helped found Rutgers University and was the driving force behind the founding of Princeton University. The Divinity School at Harvard is named after him. It seems like a guy like that should have been rich. Apparently, he wasn’t. Loser.

My ancestors had jobs like coal miner, plumber, school teacher, carnival barker, store keeper, gas station attendant. No money in any of that. You’d think at least one of them would have invented something worthwhile.

I’ve always wanted a trust fund. I know people who have trust funds. Some of them don’t work. Some do, but not because they have to work. Some clever person in an earlier generation saw to that. Trust funds are the calling card of the rich. Man, I hate that.

You can inherit large amounts of money without having anything going for you. You just get it. No brilliant inventions or hard work. You just make it to the reading of the will. It’s no wonder we hate that.

Of course, the worst is if one of your distant relatives or, God forbid, friends becomes rich. Now, you not only face the fact that your ancestors let you down, but you have an example right in your face of your own failings. You’re left with little choice but to try your best to sponge off them whenever possible.

Some people are rich because they marry rich people. That’s especially galling. We should marry for love, but why can’t we love a rich person? Hating all of them makes that tough. Fortunately, most of us can look past that hate to at least marry someone if he or she is rich enough.

It may have been Scott Fitzgerald who said the rich are different. They are. Rich people go to rich people schools with names like The Goiter School or some other pretentious name. If your school starts with “The,” you’re probably rich, too. They go to Harvard or Yale or Princeton until they go to grad school where they end up at a state university with the rest of us. We like them until we find out they’re rich. Sometimes, we still do like them, but we’re still jealous and secretly hope they’ll give us some money or lose all theirs. Either one would be satisfying.

They have different names, too. Lots of III’s and IV’s and what have you. Names like Conroy Hollingsworth Van Dusenberger IV. You can hardly blame them, given the success of their ancestors. I’d be glad to be named after my great-uncle Stud if he’d made a fortune. You can also get nicknames like Chip and Trip and Trey. We hate names like that.

The rich belong to clubs, too. Country clubs, lunch clubs, dinner clubs, book clubs. They play croquet and badminton. Their kids play lacrosse, whatever that is. They have nannies and au pairs. They’re different. Not bad different. Just different. We hate that.

We make ourselves feel better by saying things like “money can’t buy happiness” or noting that the Bible talks about shoving camels through eyes of needles and whatnot. Of course, we fail to note that many poor and middle class people are unhappy, too. I’m sure plenty of them go to Hell, too. Unhappy, Hell-bound and not rich. Now, that’s something we’d definitely hate.

We’re a few days from the Presidential Election and being rich is an issue. Mitt Romney is rich, and people don’t like that. He’s “out of touch” or “aloof.” We should just admit the real problem: He’s rich. Oddly enough, Obama is also rich, but it’s a different kind of rich. He became rich as a politician, which should certainly be more suspicious than inheriting money. Somehow, that’s different but not really. We have two Harvard-educated multi-millionaires running for President. That’s pretty much par for the course. Don’t you hate that?

Hating the rich crosses party lines. When George W. Bush ran against John Kerry, we had the same thing–two Ivy League multi-millionaires. They both went to Yale. Both were rich. Really rich. But Kerry seemed super-duper rich. That’s because he married a rich woman, the widow of John Heinz. Heinz was rich. Why? Heinz Ketchup. That’s right–inventors of the greatest ketchup known to man. That’s just too damn much money in one house. Kerry was aloof and out of touch. Bush was down to Earth. Both are richer than most of us can ever think about being without hitting a lick, but one seemed richer than the other and, thus, more hateable.

Most of our Presidents in the past century were rich. JFK was rich. His family made a fortune in bootlegging, but money is money. FDR was so rich that he could marry his own cousin and no one cared. Try that today. Nixon was rich, although he made all his money as a politician. Good old Tricky Dick. I don’t know if Reagan was rich, but he was some kind of movie star–they’re all rich. Now, Truman wasn’t rich. In fact, he was so not rich that the federal government became concerned about him and gave him a pension. No one wanted to see a former president penniless. You don’t have to be rich to be President, but it sure doesn’t hurt. We hate that about the President.

I’m told I should dislike Romney because he’s rich. Apparently, if you’re really rich, you’re evil. I’ve never seen that correlation, but it would make me feel better if it were true. You know, something like rich people eating poor people. Supposedly, Romney doesn’t care about anyone but the rich. I guess that’s possible, but he’s given a lot of his money to charity which can’t be all bad unless it’s a charity for rich people. Folks should just cut to the chase and say: “Vote for Obama. He’s rich but not as rich as Romney.” Naturally, we’d hate anyone who said that.

Even though we hate the rich, we all want to be rich, don’t we? We play the PowerBall to get rich, even though the odds are better that you will one day live next door to someone who walked on the moon than actually winning. It’s worth a shot. When someone wins the PowerBall, don’t you hate them just a little bit?

If there’s a downside to being rich (other than all the hate), it’s that you might not always be rich. It happens. That would suck. Then you’d have to hate people who are like you used to be and are what you want to be, too. Seems like that would be tough. We’d hate that.

One good thing about the rich is that it’s okay to hate them. Other than politicians and athletes, hate isn’t socially acceptable. You can hate the rich without being a bigot or some kind of phobe. Try saying “Eat The Poor.” You’ll have no friends.

If you’re rich, take no offense. I don’t really hate you. I’m just a wee bit jealous. I’d like to be your friend. More importantly, I’d like a trust fund. Of course, if you are rich, I doubt you’d read my foolish blog, but one of your servants might read it to you. (Sorry, more rich people envy. Don’t hate me).

Oh well. Make friends with some rich people. Then, eat them.

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Wealth

Come Retire With Me!

5 Ridiculous Things: A Random List

Eat The Rich